The early development of viral vectors was aimed at the inexpensive production of high levels of specialty proteins that could be scaled up in the field. The first attempt at a plant viral vector utilized Cauliflower mosaic virus, a dsDNA virus (Brisson et al., 1984; Gronenborn et al., 1981). However, this vector was too unstable to be useful (Fütterer et al., 1990). The development of reverse genetics systems amenable for manipulation of RNA viruses made many more viruses candidates for vector development (Ahlquist et al., 1984).
Virus vectors are key ingredients in basic research and have great potential for commercial applications. Lack of stability of foreign inserts has been a major drawback for potential applications of virus vectors for commercial protein expression in field applications.